If you have a business, it is almost guaranteed these days that you also have a website. The name people type into their browser to find your website? That is your domain name. Broadly speaking, most businesses in the US are at businessname.com.
You likely know that. But what you might not know is that there is a growing category of scams known as domain name abuse. In a nutshell, scammers use variations of someone’s legitimate domain name to mislead, deceive, or exploit users.
Typically, their goal is to obtain personal information from people who think they are going to your website such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and phone numbers. Plus addresses and health records. All of these can be valuable to those with nefarious goals.
Unfortunately, every time your company’s name is involved in hurting someone – even if you had absolutely nothing to do with it – is a black mark for your business. What can you do to combat this and protect your good name? It starts with understanding how the scams work.
Domain Name Abuse: The 411
There are three main types of domain name abuse tactics:
Domain Spoofing. This is where scammers create websites with similar names to legitimate businesses. For example, if you are at businessname.com, they might register businessnamecareers.com to trick jobseekers.
Typosquatting. Scammers have also been known to register common misspellings of a domain (e.g., “businesname.com” or “businessnam.com”) to catch users who mistype URLs. Letters like “i” and lowercase “L” are often swapped to fool visitors.
Top-Level Domain Scams. These types of scams spell your domain name exactly the same except for one thing – they change the top-level domain. What does that mean? Your top-level domain is the last part of your domain URL – generally .com in the US. So scammers will instead register businessname.team. Or .biz, .pro, .store, or whatever top-level domain seems the most legitimate.
Jobseekers are common targets of scams – including domain name abuse scams, so for this post we will focus on them. Most commonly, criminals obtain a domain name similar to a major company, then email people who are looking for employment in that industry pretending to be in the HR department. Hopeful jobseekers respond, sometimes even going through fake interviews and being “hired” by the scammers.
Once the criminals believe they have convinced their prey that they are legitimate, they start asking for the same kind of personal information all businesses ask for from new employees. You can see how easy it might be for a skilled scammer to use this type of tactic effectively. And your business is left looking bad because they used your name.
What Can Businesses Do to Combat This?
Thankfully, there are a number of things business owners can do to reduce the chances of this happening.
Create Alerts. Tools like Google Alerts allow you to receive a message every time your business is mentioned online – even on job boards or in social media. Why would you want to do this? Because if and when someone attempts a fraudulent job post, you will get a heads up so you can proactively deal with it.
Start an Education Campaign. Post information on your site about these types of hiring scams, as well as what your official hiring procedures are. Include links in your social accounts pointing people to that information. Focus your education and training both on jobseekers and internal partners – particularly those in HR and Recruitment – to fight it from both sides.
Use an Official Application Portal. If you utilize a singular, secure application portal for jobseekers to submit and include a clear warning about using unaffiliated third-party websites, it can cut down on a lot of these problems.
Set Up a Scam Point of Contact. Create an official email address people can submit possible scams to and make sure you advertise the existence of this email on your site.
Report All Scams. Every time you run across a potential scam, you should report it to the FTC. Additionally, you can report suspicious recruiters and postings on job boards to the board itself. Finally, if you are aware that someone’s personal or financial information has been compromised, contact local law enforcement. If you are the victim of a cyber crime, you can even report it to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
Can You Take Legal Action against Possible Domain Name Scammers?
Absolutely. In fact, I am helping clients right now stop scammers by filing a complaint with the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Center with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). My ultimate goal is to get the Registrar of the domain to block the domain and turn it over to my client.
Specific legal actions I can help you with when fighting these types of scams include:
Contacting the Domain Registrar. We will assist you in identifying the registrar of the offending domain, getting in contact with the registrar to report the issue, and providing evidence of the potential scam or infringement.
Drafting a Cease and Desist Letter. Sometimes making a formal request will result in the site’s owner taking it down voluntarily.
Tell the Hosting Provider. Fraudulent activities typically are not allowed by hosting providers, and they have policies in place regarding this. Reaching out to the hosting provider could result in them taking down the site. We can help you find the hosting provider and make the report.
File a Trademark Infringement Claim. Is your domain name or business a registered trademark? If so, we can file a trademark infringement claim on your behalf.
Use WIPO and ICANN. As I mentioned above, I have filed a domain dispute complaints with WIPO, arguing that my client owns the trademark for the domain name in dispute and should receive ownership rights over the domain. ICANN manages domain names, and WIPO makes recommendations to them.
Your Ultimate Goal Is to Protect Your Good Name
No one wants their business name associated with scams, but unfortunately the digital world we live in has provided a bunch of new opportunities for bad actors. Let us help you protect your business and your brand by stopping them. Get in touch for a consultation today.